Browse: Suzuki Bach Cantatas (series)

Started in 1995 Suzuki's series with the Bach Collegium Japan is maintaining a remarkable consistency of sheer quality. These performances radiate freshness, and their vitality is matched by a wonderfully present recorded sound which, in the later volumes, with the addition of the surround effect of SACD, is very realistic indeed. It gives impression that one is in the auditorium where the performances are taking place.

With Carolyn Sampson and Yukari Nonoshita among others joining the soloists in recent volumes, the quality of the solo singing, and indeed the instrumental obbligati, seem unsurpassable.

Suzuki uses a higher pitch (A=465) with its brighter sound, and also favours female voices. The strings are clean yet have bloom, and there is no sense of inhibition.

"Although the excellence of rival surveys is not in doubt, this Japanese survey is the strongest and most consistent, and the BIS recordings are altogether exemplary" - Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music, 2008.

The partnership of BIS (namely Robert von Bahr) and BCJ could indeed be one of the very last recording investments of this nature and length in the modern digital era. We celebrate it here with... — Gramophone Magazine, October 2018More…

There's a striking transparency in even the densest of counterpoint...Over 18 years Suzuki seems to have subtly changed his relationship with Bach, from a reverential approach to confident familiarity.... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2013, More…

On March 25, 1725, Bach celebrated the Feast of the Annunciation and Palm Sunday with a special cantata, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern ('How beautifully shines the morning star'), a work... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010More…

Solo soprano and trumpet… have long made Bach's cantata 'Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen' a favourite with audiences. …this new performance with Carolyn Sampson and trumpeter Toshio Shimada is... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2006, More…

Both the gentleness and ecstatic immediacy of Bach’s rich imagery become apparent at the outset and each movement is performed at a compellingly high level. The liquid and brilliantly projected... — Gramophone Magazine, August 2017More…

Suzuki balances detail sensitively, helped by the SACD sound...Hana Blažíková duets exuberantly with trumpet in her aria...this is a superb disc, Suzuki at one with Bach - and both at their best. — BBC Music Magazine, November 2013, More…

Bach Collegium Japan's trumpets and horns mount a thrilling assault to play without modern drilled holes to fix their intonation to the expectations of modern ears...The outstanding moment is... — Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2014More…

The two voices are ideally cast. Mieke (Mojca Erdmann) sings with a charming simplicity as she resists and then gives way to the advances of her rustic beau, Dominik Wörner. He sings with great... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2016, More…